those days with him were the only times she’d ever felt wanted and loved, until she’d met Conrad.
Pain squeezed her chest. If she’d known, less than a year later, Conrad would be aboard Gorgon and off to embrace his true passion, she would have been more cautious with her heart.
‘Come to see the animal?’ Conrad slurred from behind her.
She jerked up straight and focused through the darkness to where Conrad pushed himself up out of a chair by the fireplace, swaying as he stood.
She laid a shaking hand over her chest, as startled by his drunkenness as his unexpected presence. She’d never seen him drink to excess before. ‘Conrad, I didn’t know you were in here.’
‘You’d have avoided the room if you’d known?’
Yes. ‘No, I wanted to see the tiger.’
‘Of course you did.’ The edge in his voice disturbed her as much as the incomplete skeleton.
‘Where’s the head?’
‘Over there.’ He pointed to where the skull glowed white against the dark carpet.
She walked over and scooped it up, then turned it over in her hands to examine it. ‘I don’t think any permanent damage has been done.’
‘Can’t say the same about much else, now can we?’
Katie ignored the sarcasm as she reattached the skull to the neck.
‘I suppose you’ve heard my status in the world has been quite elevated since I’ve been gone?’ Conrad slurred as he staggered over to stand beside her.
‘As the heir, will you resign your commission?’ There was a little too much hope in her question.
‘No,’ Conrad answered without hesitation. ‘It’s what Helton expects me to do and I’m not about to do his bidding.’
‘I see.’ There was nothing in the world which would persuade him to cease exploring, not a title, or even love.
‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’ Conrad prodded.
‘I don’t envy you enough to congratulate you.’ There were few but the most sycophantic of people desirous of a place in government who envied a connection to the Marquis of Helton.
‘You’re right, you shouldn’t. No one should.’ The same desperation Katie had experienced during the past year, when the long days of spring had turned into summer and then autumn with no sign of Conrad or his ship, coloured his voice. He peered past her into the night beyond the window, the lines of his face hardening with a pain she felt deep inside her heart. ‘I had to leave him.’
‘Who?’ Katie whispered, troubled by the mournful tone of his voice.
‘Aaron.’ He choked out the name as if it cut his tongue.
Katie swallowed hard. She remembered the red-headed Scotsman with a laugh as thick as his brogue. Of all the men who’d assembled on Gorgon’s deck to meet her, the barrel-chested man with the quick smile and lively eyes had seemed the least likely to perish. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’ He staggered back to the side table and took up a heavy, square decanter, gripping it tightly in one hand as he raised it to his lips. The liquid inside sloshed as he struggled to hold it, then he lost his grip and the heavy crystal tumbled to the floor, its fall broken by the head of the lion skin lying prone beneath the chairs.
‘Damn it.’ Conrad stared at his fingers as though they’d betrayed him.
Katie rushed to him, laying a comforting hand on his arm, wanting to draw out his pain like a splinter and help ease both of their suffering. ‘What happened, Conrad?’
* * *
The contrast between Katie’s white hand on his dark, sea spray-stiffened coat was as startling as this second show of tenderness after so much reserve. It gave him hope, but not enough to make him speak. At one time he could have described to her the heart-wrenching moment he’d discovered his friend lying frozen in the snow and the agony of having to leave him where he lay. He could have described to her the pain and fears he’d experienced during the winter and the damage they’d wrecked on his confidence, body and soul. He could have told her of his concerns about his reputation once Mr Barrow received his report. The Katie from over a year ago would have listened and comforted, but not this one. ‘You aren’t the woman I left.’
She snatched back her hand. ‘Did you really believe you could sail away and nothing and no one would change while you were gone? Did you think you could leave and come back to find everything the same?’
‘I believed our love would be the same.’
‘Love isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for my parents. It isn’t enough for us.’ The surrender in her voice ripped through him like a gale wind.
He stepped closer, wanting to wrap her in his arms and soothe away the distress furrowing her brow, but he didn’t. She was no frail society miss. He’d seen her break ground with a shovel in search of a fossil too many times to think her weak. But as he’d learned over the past year, those who thought they were the strongest were sometimes the most vulnerable. ‘The Katie I knew before wouldn’t have given up like that.’
‘That Katie hadn’t seen how ugly London and everyone could be and how willing you were to leave me to face it alone while you chased your precious dreams.’
His sympathy vanished. ‘You know I wanted us to marry before I left. You were the one who insisted we wait.’
‘Because I needed to see what it would be like to live in your world and I did, every day while you were gone.’
‘That’s not my world. It’s my uncle’s.’
‘No, your world is in far-off lands,’ she scoffed, her dismissal of his work and everything he was as stinging as her rejection.
‘What did I do to you to engender such derision?’ he hissed.
‘You left.’
‘You know I had no choice.’
‘You could have resigned your commission. Instead, you chose to remain in the Discovery Service and put Mr Barrow’s whims and wants above everyone else’s. It’s the rest of us who were left with no choice but to deal with it and all the consequences. Despite coming home, it won’t be long before Mr Barrow snaps his fingers and you’re gone again.’
‘And what of you?’ He levelled an accusing finger at her. ‘Are you ready to leave your work for me, to give up the fossils and chasing after the acceptance of all the scientific societies to place me first in your life?’
She recoiled, her answer in her silence.
‘And you accuse me of being selfish.’ He snatched another decanter from the table, using both hands to grip it. The silver tag hanging around the bottle’s neck clanked against the crystal as Conrad raised it to his lips. By the time he lowered the thing, she was gone.
He
